Global Sustainability 2009

In 2009 SFI and the Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy
Laboratory (NREL) hosted an intensive two-week Global Sustainability
Summer School July 12-25 to explore global sustainability from many
perspectives. The primary focus was on problems posed by climate
change and potential solutions.

Thirty-two participants represented 10 countries and dozens of
disciplines that include graduate students, postdoctoral fellows,
faculty from a variety of colleges and universities, and individuals from government and the private sector. The 2009 school focused on
the problems of climate change from a geophysical point of view,
economic analysis of probable climate change, and the innovation and
diffusion of technologies that might mitigate it.

Partial support for the 2009 GSSS was provided by the National Science Foundation.

The scientists highlighted these conclusions: scientific evidence
that our release of greenhouse gases risks dangerously warming the
climate is incontrovertible. Most of the technologies needed to start
solving the problem exist today and many are ready for large-scale
implementation, although a full solution will require a major
commitment to further research and innovation. These low-carbon
technologies represent a large economic opportunity, but the ordinary
course of innovation and technological diffusion is too slow to meet
the challenge of addressing climate change. Large-scale government
intervention is therefore needed to accelerate this process.

The program was highly interactive and participant-centered. Students
formed working groups around clustered research ideas and developed
nascent research agenda and action strategies for each conceptual
area. An active social network now exists and the community is
pursuing its project work on a distributed basis. For example, 2009
faculty member Nebojsa Nakicenovic (International Institute for
Applied Systems Analysis) is conducting a global energy assessment
project focusing on scenarios about Human Development Index metrics
(measures like social equity, health, education, etc.). This large
body of data will be available to school alumni The school’s initial
discussions and outcomes have been drawn together into several op-ed
pieces. The lectures and materials produced by the students can be
found here.